A daring escape!

Spidergrrl

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 11, 2013
Messages
43
This morning my juvenile Brachypelma vagans almost made a daring escape. It had been housed in a small critter keeper that had originally been of the sort that houses crickets (Cricket Keeper) but had been repurposed to hold the T. I had simply taped over the holes intended for the cricket "tubes". It was a double layer of tape both inside and outside and I had believed this would be sufficient to contain the littler bugger. While I was doing a check of my tarantulas this morning I was shocked to see the shadow of a tarantula outside the enclosures where no tarantula should be. I quickly started moving to block any escape routes from the area and to my enormous relief, the little fugitive scurried back into the safety of their enclosure. I double checked that all the rest of the tarantulas were where they belonged and immediately exchanged the Cricket Keeper top for a more secure Critter Keeper top. The little fellow (about 2.5 inch dls) had chewed through the tape and created his own little door to the outside world. Lesson learned.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about...

I decided to do a little look-up on Google regarding B. vagans and the Wikipedia article had this interesting tidbit.


"The Ch'ol Maya consider these spiders to be positive; and use them medicinally. A hierbatero kills it, then crushes it, mixes it with spirit alcohol and strains out any irritating hairs with a traditional cloth. The beverage is used for the treatment of "tarantula wind" the symptoms being chest pain coughing and asthma."


I thought perhaps it might be time to give a name to this particular miscreant of a spider and thought I'd see if I could find the Ch'ol word for the tarantula. Further internet time led me to a Ch'ol-Spanish Dictionary and the discovery that the Ch'ol word for Tarantula is xpetstoc'. Interestingly if you then "Google" xpetstoc' the only result you get is in a site on the "Spiders of Turkey". At first, I was very excited that the word was found both in an indigenous Mayan language and in Turkey but it turns out the Turkish website was referencing the Mayan spider.

Cheers,

Spidergrrl (Paula)
 

viper69

ArachnoGod
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 8, 2006
Messages
17,851
Another example of the pet being smarter than the owner. You aren't the first, and won't be the last. They can be very determined animals, wouldn't you if you were in prison. :clown:
 
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